The present invention relates to interactive systems and particularly to a system for processing viewer responses to television programming on a real time or pseudo real time basis.
Television is currently the dominant medium for disseminating entertainment and information to the general public. The television set has become a virtual necessity in almost every household. Viewers spend an average 6.5 hours each day passively watching a wide variety of programming including sitcoms, movies, sports, news and so on. Substantially all television programs disseminated by broadcasters are financed by businesses that buy time from television broadcasters to advertise goods and services. Currently, television advertisers are limited to gross impression advertising which does not provide any direct information as to the effect of their commercials on the viewing public.
It would be highly beneficial to TV advertisers and TV viewers if they could interact on a real time basis, for example, at the times commercials are aired. Advertisers could know which viewers are reacting favorably to their commercials, and viewers could respond directly to advertisers in order to make a purchase and obtain a receipt or other information. In this way, consumer-interactive direct response advertising could be achieved.
In addition to direct response advertising, viewer-interactive television has a multitude of other applications, such as polling, voting, education, game playing, etc.